Party for "The Advocate" is a night to remember...

Somebody send me to an anti-blogging clinic!
I was invited to last night's 40th anniversary gala for The Advocate as a guest. I'm a contributing writer to this great magazine and wanted to enjoy the evening just meeting people and hanging out with my pal, Trevor Daley, who I had so much fun with a few weeks back on opening night for "Avenue Q."
But at the last minute, I stick my tape recorder in my pocket (just in case) and I dash out the door. When I got to the party at Republic near West Hollywood, I saw a red carpet and headed straight to it instead of the guest check-in table. Trevor and I had arrived seperately and I didn't know where the heck he was. And at that moment, I didn't care. I had stars to interview!
Had not reserved a space on the red carpet but just crashed it. Just sorta got right in there and stuck my recorder in Nikki Blonsky's face! What a cutie pie. She the girl who played Tracy in "Hairspray" and I think she's so terrifically talented. But I'd been seeing pictures of her and Zac Efron in Australia promoting the fillm so I wondered: "Aren't you exhausted?"
Nope.
"I'm getting to see the world and getting to spread this movie across the world and show this amazing creation that we all just made."
I asked her what she thought of the domestic success of "Hairspray," only the fourth musical in history to earn more than $100 million at the box office: "We kind of all went into this with no expectations, hoping and praying that it would do well and thank God our prayers were answered."
Then I spot James Marsden, the unbelievably handsome James Marsden. He was in "Hairspray" and we gabbed aboiut that and a few other things that I'll share with you in a future post. (I'm such a tease!) Also chatted up Billy Baldwin who tried to trick me into believing he was one of his brothers. But I know my Baldwin brothers and I know that he's the hottest one. Billy did the red carpet with transgendered actress Candis Cayne who plays his love intererest in the new ABC series "Dirty Sexy Money." Sorry, future post on that one too.
Then it was time to gab with two great gals, Tracy Scoggins and Thea Gill who play sisters on "Dante's Cove." I'm so glad I have already seen the first episode of season three because I was able to tell them how much I loved their Krystal-Alexis style fight. And I loved how Tracy called her a "bloody cow!" She actually improvised that line, among many others. I'll post their interviews later today as well as the chat I had with Reichen Lehmkuhl who is a cast member now and who I think will surprise people. Reichen was at the party with his beautiful boyfriend Ryan Barry who I also spoke with. Moved on to actress Jane Lynch and did an interview and chatted up Gregory Michael of "Dante's Cove."

At this point, Trevor finds me. I've been working the party for a good half hour. No need to worry about him being a lost lamb. He had been upstairs socializing and now wanted to work the downstairs room. I said: "Hey, you're MY guest and I need to work the upstairs room - NOW." Good thing too. We walked up and there we were next to T.R. Knight and Katherine Heigl! I shared our official conversation with them in the previous post but it was most fun to talk with the tape recorder off. T.R. was asking about the blog an d we talked about the various pre-Emmy parties we'd seen each other at. I introduced him to Trevor and next thing I know, Trevor is posing with T.R. and some other dude for the photographer.
Can't I have any of my own TV star friends without Trevor coming up and stealing them?
We move on to a less crowded room and bump into the one and only Alec Mapa. He's an absolute hoot and in a seperate post, I'm gonna post some big casting news about America's Gaysian Sweetheart. Lotsa great guys upstairs including Darryl Stephens of "Noah's Arc" and "Boy Culture" and the mega-talented Wilson Cruz. Trevor gets me a drink. I've had no dinner and the food is scarce. I have one drink and my silly meter just goes off the charts.
Did a few more interviews before my second and last) drink. Chatted up Eric Alva, former Advocate cover subject who after being lauded as the first U.S. soldier injured in the Iraq War, came out of the closet. And it was very special for me to be able to have a few moments with Advocate editor Anne Stockwell. I told Anne what a privledge it is for me to write for the magazine and how I look forward to many more articles together. We also did an interview which, you guessed it, I'll share with you sometime over the next few days.
Meanwhile, Trevor is busy making friends including Doug Spearman, one of the hunky stars of "Noah's Arc" and an Advocate cover subject. We gabbed about the "Noah" movie to be shot before the end of the year and some other things he's got cooking.
As the clock ticked toward 11 p.m., the hunger factor was getting too hard to ignore. Free booze with little food is dangerous for me but I'm feeling good, just fine. Not so one of the guys standing next to me and Trevor in the valet line: he just falls over. One minute he's making out with another guy and the next minute, he's on the ground - and he went down with a mighty thud.
But I gotta say, it was a night worth falling over for.



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